CURRENTS

CURRENTS; Adios, Weeds, Hello, Flowers

By EVE M. KAHN

Published: September 26, 1991

THE most publicly accessible effort of New York's Adopt-A-Highway program now abuts the Belt Parkway near Bay 17th Street in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn.

The two-year-old program uses corporate donations to rejuvenate landscapes along highways. It has already given a wildflower meadow to the Staten Island Expressway and flower beds to the Van Wyck Expressway. Neither of these projects, however, lie near pedestrian areas. The Belt Parkway's new plantings surround the bases of a pedestrian bridge. Brooklyn Union Gas, with a gift of $30,000, was the major donor to the project.

Almost all of the flowers are in pastel colors. "The ocean is close by and it's very pastely, and the autumn olives we found there have silvery green foliage," said Kim Mulcahy, the program's horticulturist, who adheres strictly to a single color scheme at every embankment he undertakes.

Photo: Kim Mulcahy near Belt Parkway. (Steve Hart for The New York Times)